KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 3 — Bursa Malaysia remained lower as at mid-afternoon today, on emerging profit taking with most of the heavyweight counters traded in red, and in line with the downtrend on the regional bourses, a dealer said.

At 3pm, the benchmark index shed 11.26 points to 1,559.29 from Monday’s close of 1,570.55.   

Market breadth was negative as losers thumped gainers 524 to 238, while 331 counters were unchanged, 872 untraded and 17 others suspended.

Turnover amounted to 1.40 billion shares worth RM981.65 million.

Among the heavyweights, Maybank eased one sen to RM8.50, Public Bank declined 18 sen to RM19.38, TNB slipped eight sen to RM13, Petronas Chemicals went down seven sen to RM7.03 while CIMB was five sen lower at RM5.14.

Of the actives, Ekovest added three sen to 80.5 sen, Khee San improved six sen to RM36.5 sen, while PUB and Solarvest eased half-a-sen each to four sen and 86.5 sen, respectively.

The FBM Emas Index fell 73.96 points to 11,062.31, the FBMT 100 Index decreased 74 points to 10,875.60, the FBM Ace dipped 42.96 points to 4,757.30, the FBM Emas Shariah Index contracted 70.15 points to 11,592.19 and the FBM 70 went down 74.90 points to 13,766.80.    

Sector-wise, the Plantation Index reduced 20 points to 7,136.26, the Financial Services Index erased 98.66 points to 15,218.51 and the Industrial Products & Services Index gave up 1.01 points to 149.42. — Bernama